L M Brady
Biographic Data
| ID | 27409 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L M Brady |
| GIVEN NAMES | L M |
| FAMILY NAME | Brady |
| SIGNATURE | BRADY L M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Flinders University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3997-3470 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 53 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 271 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 53 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Rethinking boundaries
Drawing inspiration from the work of Tim Maloney and India Ella Dilkes-Hall, whose 2020 critical reassessment of tula diffusion in the southern Kimberley (Western Australia) revealed a more gradual, regionally mediated uptake than previously proposed, we report on a number of new tula occurrences in Marra Country, Limmen National Park (Northern Territory) and examine the associated technological and cultural implications. While archaeologists hav…
Legal change and children’s shared decision making experiences in mental health
This study systematically reviewed data regarding children and young peoples experience of shared decision making in mental health services before and after the introduction of the English Health and Social Care Act (2012), which encouraged the practice. Studies collecting relevant data between 2008 and 2022 were systematically searched on four databases in April 2022. Studies were excluded based on the age and location of participants and the ty…
Sweeping Stone, Cleaning Country
In this paper we demonstrate how a concentrated mound of 8622 stone artefacts excavated at Walanjiwurru 1 rockshelter in Marra Country, northern Australia, reflects the emotional and spiritual dimensions of sweeping, and moral obligations to maintain Country. While archaeological studies have previously documented sweeping as part of site formation, and the social significance of stone in Australia is well established, few studies have examined h…
The seascape in stone
Relationships between landscape and motifs have featured in 'rock art' research worldwide. Yet there has been comparatively little exploration of rock art's significance in constructing maritime lifeways. This paper uses a dataset of 3183 images from 65 island and coastal rock art sites in Yanyuwa Sea Country in northern Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria to investigate how marine-centric concepts linked to rock art are applied to inscribe a seascap…
Brilliant blue
Within the extensively painted rockshelters of Awunbarna (Mt Borradaile) in western Arnhem Land, appears a cluster of paintings that are conspicuous amongst the traditional white, red, yellow, and black figures. Brilliant blue pigment has, for generations, captured the imagination of local Aboriginal community members and visitors, including rock art researchers. This rock art was created using laundry whiteners (such as Reckitt’s Blue) during a …
Why should we explore contemporary relationships to the archaeological record
Collaborative anthracology and cultural understandings of wood charcoal in Marra Country (northern Australia)
This paper presents results from the first collaborative anthracological (archaeological wood charcoal analysis) study in northern Australia's southwest Gulf of Carpentaria region. The analysis focused on charcoal from a Late Holocene combustion feature and surrounding dispersed charcoal on a buried floor surface. The results suggest that the combustion feature likely functioned as a ground oven associated with a potential specific function, with…
Always a Trace
In this paper, we explore how we might “see” and interrogate absence and presence in the archaeological record. Our aim is to bring into question the epistemic lens (archaeological), through which absence is made visible, and the epistemic lens (Indigenous knowledge), through which absence is made impossible. To do this, we turn to the contact rock art record from Yanyuwa Country in northern Australia, where, despite four centuries of contact wit…
Encountering the Past
Ian McNiven recently argued that interpretive theoretical frameworks shaped by Indigenous worldviews offer the potential to enrich archaeological understandings of the past and inform archaeological practice in the present. In this chapter, the authors apply one of the core theoretical concepts McNiven identified—Indigenous experiences of encountering the past—to their work with Ngarrindjeri, Jawoyn, and Yanyuwa Aboriginal people. Through the len…
Exploring palaeoecology in the Northern Territory
This paper presents a palynological analysis of sediments from Walanjiwurru 1, a rockshelter located in the Country of the Marra Aboriginal people at Limmen National Park in the Northern Territory (Australia). Analysis seeks to test rockshelter sediments as a framework for research in an environmentally difficult location, and to explore how the palaeoecological record may capture the diversity of people-nature relationships over time in the Nort…
Recording Kastom
Recording Kastom: Alfred Haddon’s Journals from the Torres Strait and New Guinea, 1888 and 1898." Australian Historical Studies, 53(4), pp. 653–654
The Presence of Absence
Studies into the presence and absence of post-European contact rock art within Indigenous communities are particularly relevant to questions of colonial impact and influence. However, it is the presence of post-contact motifs and introduced subject matter that typically takes precedence in these studies. In this paper, we focus on the absence of post-contact paintings of European ships in Torres Strait (northeastern Australia) rock art. This abse…
Extraordinary Back-to-Back Human and Animal Figures in the Art of Western Arnhem Land, Australia
Depictions of mythical beings appear in many different forms of art world-wide, including rock art of various ages. In this paper we explore a particular type of imagery, back-to-back figures, consisting of two human-like figures or animals of the same species next to each other and facing in opposite directions. Some human-like doubles were joined at the back rather than side-by-side, but also face opposite directions. In this paper, we report o…
Contact’ Rock Art and the Hybrid Economy Model
Studies of introduced subject matter in rock-art assemblages typically focus on themes of cross-cultural interaction, change and continuity, power and resistance. However, the economic frameworks guiding or shaping the production of an assemblage have often been overlooked. In this paper we use a case study involving a recently recorded assemblage of introduced subject matter from Marra Country in northern Australia's southwest Gulf of Carpentari…
Marra philosophies of stone, and the stone artefacts of Walanjiwurru 1 rockshelter, Marra Country, northern Australia
Meaningful choices and relational networks
Boundaries, Relationality, and Style Provinces in Australian Rock Art
Identifying style provinces is a popular topic of enquiry in Australian rock art research. At the core of these studies is the focus on the style or manner of depiction of motifs as a key indicator for determining patterns of motif similarity and difference, and their corresponding spatial distribution. In identifying spatial continuities and discontinuities based on a formal analysis of rock art motifs fixed in place, researchers sometimes limit…
Beneath the Top End
Regional-scale assessments have proven to be invaluable frameworks for research, public engagement and management of submerged archaeological landscapes. Regional-scale approaches have been implemented internationally through a variety of academic or strategic studies. Such studies represent a much-needed next step towards subregional and site-level prospection to support management, engagement and mitigation of the impacts of offshore developmen…
Crafting Country
Crafting Country: Aboriginal Archaeology in the Eastern Chichester Range, North-West Australia." Australian Archaeology, 86(3), pp. 322–323
Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style
In this paper, a previously undescribed rock art style consisting of large human figures and animals with stroke-line infill is introduced. These depictions have been named Maliwawa Figures. They are primarily found in northwest Arnhem Land and to date have been recorded at 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk clan state of the Wellington Range. There are solitary figures and others arranged in compositions or scenes…
A 1,200-year-old ground-stone object from South Western Torres Strait (northeast Australia) and its implications for historicising ethnographically known social networks
Ground-stone objects such as stone-headed clubs (gabagab) and axes/adzes held key positions in ethnographically known social networks encompassing Torres Strait and southern central New Guinea. However, the antiquity of ground-stone artefacts in this region is poorly understood given the small number of ground-stone objects found in dated archaeological contexts. We report on the discovery of a 1,200-year-old fragment of a ground-stone implement …
Nalangkulurru, the Spirit Beings, and the Black‐Nosed Python
We write from an ontological premise that there are other ways to know and understand the “archaeological record” and “rock art” that are devoid of Western ontology, and there have been for many millennia. In this article, we consider one specific Indigenous place and its associated visual elements, what might be commonly referred to as “rock art.” This place, Nalangkalurru, is replete with meaning, grounded in a well‐founded and understood logic…
What painting? Encountering and interpreting the archaeological record in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia
Research into contemporary Indigenous relationships with the archaeological record has increasingly drawn upon frameworks emphasising relational, affectual and cultural understandings to learn about the complex ways that meaning and symbolism are negotiated and expressed. In this paper, we use a series of case studies from Arnhem Land to investigate the network of relationships Aboriginal Traditional Owners use in the process of interpreting the …
A rare miniature and small-scale stencil assemblage from the Gulf of Carpentaria
Recent survey in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia has identified a unique assemblage of miniature and small-scale stencilled motifs depicting anthropomorphs, material culture, macropod tracks and linear designs. The unusual sizes and shapes of these motifs raise questions about the types of material used for the stencil templates. Drawing on ethnographic data and experimental archaeology, the authors argue that the motifs were…
Kincentric Ecology, Species Maintenance and the Relational Power of Place in Northern Australia
This paper considers themes of species maintenance and place engagement in Yanyuwa country, northern Australia. It traces the complexity of interpretations and relational contexts involved in places that are commonly – and we argue – misleadingly, referred to as increase and magic sites. Examining one specific place, at which people carry out maintenance rituals, we explore the complex bonds that unite Yanyuwa with the geography that is the Ances…
Badu 15 and the Papuan-Austronesian settlement of Torres Strait
Archaeological excavations on the island of Badu have for the first time revealed evidence of people in Torres Strait before 2500 years BP. We interpret this evidence as representing three phases of island use and occupation. Phase 1 (8000-6000 years BP), when the high islands of Torres Strait were part of terminal Greater Australia, saw permanent occupation of the region. During Phase 2 (6000-c.3500/3000 years BP), the Western Islands of Torres …
Negotiating Yanyuwa Rock Art
Archaeologists have routinely used insights derived from the study of rock art to learn more about the lifeways of humans from the deep and recent past. Yet questions concerning the contemporary significance, symbolism, and meaning of rock art to Indigenous communities have often been overlooked in pursuit of archaeological agendas. In this article, we examine contemporary engagement with rock art by the Yanyuwa Aboriginal community in northern A…
Sitting in the gap
For close to six decades, ethnoarchaeology has studied the present to better understand the past. However, if understanding the past is paramount, then what of the wishes and interests of those with whom we collaborate in the present? This situation raises questions such as who is ethnoarchaeology for, and how might its outcomes be valuable to both researchers and collaborators? We address these issues by focusing on the space in which researcher…
Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style
In this paper, a previously undescribed rock art style consisting of large human figures and animals with stroke-line infill is introduced. These depictions have been named Maliwawa Figures. They are primarily found in northwest Arnhem Land and to date have been recorded at 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk clan state of the Wellington Range. There are solitary figures and others arranged in compositions or scenes…
Who do you want to kill?' Affectual and relational understandings at a sorcery rock art site in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia
This article explores the affectual and relational contexts in which rock art is embedded through an exploration of the encounters, reactions, and responses to a well-known sorcery rock art site known as Kurrmurnnyini in northern Australia's southwest Gulf country. These encounters with a culturally powerful place, and the emotions derived from people's personal memories and experiences of Kurrmurnnyini and its sorcery-infused rock art, are vital…
Reconsidering regional rock art styles
Archaeologists have frequently employed formal style-based approaches to identify regional rock art styles as a means to learning about social organization, territoriality, boundaries and interaction/communication. However, less attention has been devoted to interrogating the relational and cultural understandings of the motifs and sites subsumed under these broad regional style labels. In this article we focus on the complex social and cultural …
Beeswax rock art from Limmen National Park (Northern Territory), northern Australia
The known geographic distribution of beeswax rock art is largely restricted to the Arnhem Land plateau and Kimberley regions of northern Australia. While considerable research has focussed on the antiquity and meaning of beeswax rock art, much less attention has been directed to the nature and extent of the distribution pattern for this unique motif production technique. In this article, we present details of two beeswax motifs recently discovere…
Goba of Mua
A team of Elders and community officials from the island of Mua in the Torres Straits got together with archaeologists from Australia to study an episode which occurred on the island before the coming of Christianity in 1871. Oral tradition located the burial place of the father of an ancestral islander named Goba, and the investigation of a rock shelter nearby gave a dated sequence of occupation and a fresh sighting of rock paintings, all relati…
The Argan stone arrangement complex, Badu
AbstarctThe Argan stone arrangement complex of the island of Badu is a series of mainly geometrically shaped stone formations that together extend for 1km along an isolated ridge-top in Western Torres Strait. Here we report on archaeological excavations at this ritual site in a first attempt to historicise Badulgal spiritscapes
Re)Engaging with the (Un)Known
Re)Engaging with the (Un)Known:Collaboration, Indigenous Knowledge, and Reaffirming Aboriginal Identity in the Torres Strait Islands, Northeastern Australia Liam M. Brady (bio) Until recently, the role of Indigenous communities in researching their past had largely been considered nonessential or unimportant by Western-trained archaeologists and anthropologists, who instead constructed their identities and histories for them. This colonial cultur…
Tigershark Rockshelter (Baidamau Mudh)
Tigershark Rockshelter, a small midden site on the sacred islet of Pulu in central western Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait), was visited intermittently by small groups of marine specialists between 500 and 1300 years ago. The diverse faunal assemblage demonstrates procurement of turtle, dugong, shellfish, fish, shark and ray from mangrove, reef and open water environments. Apart from a characteristic flaked quartz technology, the site contains shell bo…
Documenting and Analyzing Rock, Paintings from Torres Strait, NE Australia, with Digital Photography and Computer Image Enhancement
The deterioration of rock-art over time is an important concern for indigenous communities, archaeologists, rock-art researchers, and cultural heritage managers. Computer enhancement has emerged as an important tool in viewing poorly visible rock paintings. While most studies regarding this technique explore the methods associated with computer enhancement there is little discussion of the results that can be generated beyond the recovery of imag…
Contact’ Rock Art and the Hybrid Economy Model
Studies of introduced subject matter in rock-art assemblages typically focus on themes of cross-cultural interaction, change and continuity, power and resistance. However, the economic frameworks guiding or shaping the production of an assemblage have often been overlooked. In this paper we use a case study involving a recently recorded assemblage of introduced subject matter from Marra Country in northern Australia's southwest Gulf of Carpentari…
Marra philosophies of stone, and the stone artefacts of Walanjiwurru 1 rockshelter, Marra Country, northern Australia
A rare miniature and small-scale stencil assemblage from the Gulf of Carpentaria
Recent survey in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia has identified a unique assemblage of miniature and small-scale stencilled motifs depicting anthropomorphs, material culture, macropod tracks and linear designs. The unusual sizes and shapes of these motifs raise questions about the types of material used for the stencil templates. Drawing on ethnographic data and experimental archaeology, the authors argue that the motifs were…
A Place of Substance
This article is dedicated to a close examination of how stories of Indigenous place meaning come to light, and the pathways by which they travel, both physically (as tangible expressions) and intellectually (as intangible expressions). It offers a reflection on the epistemic habits that render these stories audible, visual, and otherwise sensual in the context of one Indigenous Australian community. Appreciating the communicative pathways that ex…
Morphometric Reconstructions And Size Variability Analysis Of The Surf Clam, Atactodea (=Paphies) Striata From Muralag 8, Southwestern Torres Strait, Northern Australia
This paper describes (a) the methods and results of a morphometric reconstruction and (b) a size variability study of a heavily fragmented Atactodea (=Paphies) striata (surf clam) assemblage recovered from a small midden on the island of Muralag in the southwest Torres Strait, Queensland. Two intense but discrete pulses of late Holocene cultural activity at the site have been determined. Phase 1 is centred around 622 cal. BP (544–674 cal. BP) and…
Symbolic language in Torres Strait, NE Australia
The Torres Strait is often in the research literature - unsurprisingly since it is not only a key area for early settlement but one where ancient and modern practice resonate. Rock art is a prominent archaeological source for the region - but not the only one. In this study the author shows how rock art interconnects with imagery on portable artefacts and scarification - scarring patterns on skin - to define cultural zones of the last few centuri…
Nalangkulurru, the Spirit Beings, and the Black‐Nosed Python
We write from an ontological premise that there are other ways to know and understand the “archaeological record” and “rock art” that are devoid of Western ontology, and there have been for many millennia. In this article, we consider one specific Indigenous place and its associated visual elements, what might be commonly referred to as “rock art.” This place, Nalangkalurru, is replete with meaning, grounded in a well‐founded and understood logic…
What painting? Encountering and interpreting the archaeological record in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia
Research into contemporary Indigenous relationships with the archaeological record has increasingly drawn upon frameworks emphasising relational, affectual and cultural understandings to learn about the complex ways that meaning and symbolism are negotiated and expressed. In this paper, we use a series of case studies from Arnhem Land to investigate the network of relationships Aboriginal Traditional Owners use in the process of interpreting the …
The Queensland Museum Expedition to Ngiangu (Booby Island)
In 1985 and 1990 a Queensland Museum research team visited the island of Ngiangu (Booby Island) to carry out investigations into the island's Indigenous and non-Indigenous archaeology. Forming the western boundary of Kaurareg traditional country, this small rocky island is an integral part of Kaurareg identity, and is well-known in maritime archaeology circles as a haven for European mariners shipwrecked while transiting the Strait. The research …
An archaic face from the Woodstock Abydos Protected Reserve, northwestern Western Australia
This paper discusses an archaic face motif recently recorded from the inland Pilbara region of northwestern Australia Although these motifs are well-known from other parts ol arid and semi-arid Australia, very few have been previously reported from the inland Pilbara. Located at the Lukis Granites site in the Woodstock Abydos Protected Reserve (WAPR), the archaic face forms one small part of a much larger cultural complex. Using one of Mulvaney’s…
Kabadul Kula and the Antiquity of Torres Strait Rock Art
Excavations directly below a painted panel at Kabadul Kula rock art site on the island of Dauan, northern Torres Strait, revealed buried fragments of ochre pigment to a depth of 59cm. A series of AMS 14C dates indicate that most of the ochres and all pieces of facetted ochre were deposited between 1200 and 1400 years ago. Located in a moist tropical environment where the potential for erosion and bioturbation is high, the stratigraphic integrity …
Meaningful choices and relational networks
Beneath the Top End
Regional-scale assessments have proven to be invaluable frameworks for research, public engagement and management of submerged archaeological landscapes. Regional-scale approaches have been implemented internationally through a variety of academic or strategic studies. Such studies represent a much-needed next step towards subregional and site-level prospection to support management, engagement and mitigation of the impacts of offshore developmen…
Community Archaeology and Oral Tradition
Education is about learning. But it is not always about teaching. Nor is it always held in formal educational settings. Here we present an example from Mua Island in Torres Strait, where cultural knowledge was recently communicated and passed down to the younger generation through community participation rather than through formal educational institutions. The role that community research and ceremonies play in customary learning is here brought …
The Argan stone arrangement complex, Badu
AbstarctThe Argan stone arrangement complex of the island of Badu is a series of mainly geometrically shaped stone formations that together extend for 1km along an isolated ridge-top in Western Torres Strait. Here we report on archaeological excavations at this ritual site in a first attempt to historicise Badulgal spiritscapes
Badu 15 and the Papuan-Austronesian settlement of Torres Strait
Archaeological excavations on the island of Badu have for the first time revealed evidence of people in Torres Strait before 2500 years BP. We interpret this evidence as representing three phases of island use and occupation. Phase 1 (8000-6000 years BP), when the high islands of Torres Strait were part of terminal Greater Australia, saw permanent occupation of the region. During Phase 2 (6000-c.3500/3000 years BP), the Western Islands of Torres …
Goba of Mua
A team of Elders and community officials from the island of Mua in the Torres Straits got together with archaeologists from Australia to study an episode which occurred on the island before the coming of Christianity in 1871. Oral tradition located the burial place of the father of an ancestral islander named Goba, and the investigation of a rock shelter nearby gave a dated sequence of occupation and a fresh sighting of rock paintings, all relati…
Documenting and Analyzing Rock, Paintings from Torres Strait, NE Australia, with Digital Photography and Computer Image Enhancement
The deterioration of rock-art over time is an important concern for indigenous communities, archaeologists, rock-art researchers, and cultural heritage managers. Computer enhancement has emerged as an important tool in viewing poorly visible rock paintings. While most studies regarding this technique explore the methods associated with computer enhancement there is little discussion of the results that can be generated beyond the recovery of imag…
A Middle Ground? Recent Archaeological Investigations from the Kaurareg Archipelago, South-Western Torres Strait, Queensland
Collaborative rock art research in the Kaurareg Archipelago, south-western Torres Strait, has systematically documented an assemblage consisting of 232 rock paintings from three islands. Using computer enhancement techniques, analysis of Kaurareg rock art has revealed a dataset that incorporates artistic influences from both Cape York and other western Torres Strait islands. Initial archaeological surveys have also revealed a lack of the distinct…
Tigershark Rockshelter (Baidamau Mudh)
Tigershark Rockshelter, a small midden site on the sacred islet of Pulu in central western Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait), was visited intermittently by small groups of marine specialists between 500 and 1300 years ago. The diverse faunal assemblage demonstrates procurement of turtle, dugong, shellfish, fish, shark and ray from mangrove, reef and open water environments. Apart from a characteristic flaked quartz technology, the site contains shell bo…
Symbolic language in Torres Strait, NE Australia
The Torres Strait is often in the research literature - unsurprisingly since it is not only a key area for early settlement but one where ancient and modern practice resonate. Rock art is a prominent archaeological source for the region - but not the only one. In this study the author shows how rock art interconnects with imagery on portable artefacts and scarification - scarring patterns on skin - to define cultural zones of the last few centuri…
Kabadul Kula and the Antiquity of Torres Strait Rock Art
Excavations directly below a painted panel at Kabadul Kula rock art site on the island of Dauan, northern Torres Strait, revealed buried fragments of ochre pigment to a depth of 59cm. A series of AMS 14C dates indicate that most of the ochres and all pieces of facetted ochre were deposited between 1200 and 1400 years ago. Located in a moist tropical environment where the potential for erosion and bioturbation is high, the stratigraphic integrity …
Re)Engaging with the (Un)Known
Re)Engaging with the (Un)Known:Collaboration, Indigenous Knowledge, and Reaffirming Aboriginal Identity in the Torres Strait Islands, Northeastern Australia Liam M. Brady (bio) Until recently, the role of Indigenous communities in researching their past had largely been considered nonessential or unimportant by Western-trained archaeologists and anthropologists, who instead constructed their identities and histories for them. This colonial cultur…
Digital Enhancement of Deteriorated and Superimposed Pigment Art
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract The Role of Digital Technology in Rock Art Research Methods of Enhancement Case Study 1: Recovering Pigment Art in Torres Strait, Northeastern Australia Case Study 2: Superimpositions in Jawoyn Country, Northern Australia Discussion Conclusion Acknowledgments References
Rock Art and Seascapes
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Maritime Peoples and Seascapes EDGE of the Sea Inland Seascape Maritime Identity and Agency Maritime Identity and Marine Referencing Reaffirming Marine Cosmologies Fishing Magic Voyaging Conclusions Acknowledgments References
An archaic face from the Woodstock Abydos Protected Reserve, northwestern Western Australia
This paper discusses an archaic face motif recently recorded from the inland Pilbara region of northwestern Australia Although these motifs are well-known from other parts ol arid and semi-arid Australia, very few have been previously reported from the inland Pilbara. Located at the Lukis Granites site in the Woodstock Abydos Protected Reserve (WAPR), the archaic face forms one small part of a much larger cultural complex. Using one of Mulvaney’s…
Adding Value
This article focuses on the cultural and artistic value of a collection of Torres Strait Islander drawings that were commissioned and collected in the late 19th century. I argue that these drawings, made during Alfred C. Haddon's “salvage anthropology” expeditions, can provide insight into the nature of Islander graphic systems and the production of contemporary Islander art. By focusing on stylistic links between the drawings and other forms of …
Morphometric Reconstructions And Size Variability Analysis Of The Surf Clam, Atactodea (=Paphies) Striata From Muralag 8, Southwestern Torres Strait, Northern Australia
This paper describes (a) the methods and results of a morphometric reconstruction and (b) a size variability study of a heavily fragmented Atactodea (=Paphies) striata (surf clam) assemblage recovered from a small midden on the island of Muralag in the southwest Torres Strait, Queensland. Two intense but discrete pulses of late Holocene cultural activity at the site have been determined. Phase 1 is centred around 622 cal. BP (544–674 cal. BP) and…
The Queensland Museum Expedition to Ngiangu (Booby Island)
In 1985 and 1990 a Queensland Museum research team visited the island of Ngiangu (Booby Island) to carry out investigations into the island's Indigenous and non-Indigenous archaeology. Forming the western boundary of Kaurareg traditional country, this small rocky island is an integral part of Kaurareg identity, and is well-known in maritime archaeology circles as a haven for European mariners shipwrecked while transiting the Strait. The research …
Leaving their mark
Situated at the western edge of Torres Strait, the island of Ngiangu has played an important role in the colonial and maritime history of Australia for nearly two centuries. Perhaps best known as a European ‘Post Office’, the island has also acted as a critical navigational marker, a refuge for shipwrecked mariners and a strategic monitoring station during World War II. The island features a remarkable collection of historical inscriptions that b…
Reconsidering regional rock art styles
Archaeologists have frequently employed formal style-based approaches to identify regional rock art styles as a means to learning about social organization, territoriality, boundaries and interaction/communication. However, less attention has been devoted to interrogating the relational and cultural understandings of the motifs and sites subsumed under these broad regional style labels. In this article we focus on the complex social and cultural …
Contemporary Indigenous Relationships to Archaeological Features
One of the major challenges facing archaeologists and cultural heritage/resource managers is how to better approach and understand concepts of significance and value of archaeological features (e.g. stone tools, rock art sites, pottery, stone arrangements, shell middens) in contemporary Indigenous settings. In this article, I focus on exploring contemporary Indigenous engagement and interaction with one specific type of archaeological feature—roc…
Sitting in the gap
For close to six decades, ethnoarchaeology has studied the present to better understand the past. However, if understanding the past is paramount, then what of the wishes and interests of those with whom we collaborate in the present? This situation raises questions such as who is ethnoarchaeology for, and how might its outcomes be valuable to both researchers and collaborators? We address these issues by focusing on the space in which researcher…
Who do you want to kill?' Affectual and relational understandings at a sorcery rock art site in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia
This article explores the affectual and relational contexts in which rock art is embedded through an exploration of the encounters, reactions, and responses to a well-known sorcery rock art site known as Kurrmurnnyini in northern Australia's southwest Gulf country. These encounters with a culturally powerful place, and the emotions derived from people's personal memories and experiences of Kurrmurnnyini and its sorcery-infused rock art, are vital…
Negotiating Yanyuwa Rock Art
Archaeologists have routinely used insights derived from the study of rock art to learn more about the lifeways of humans from the deep and recent past. Yet questions concerning the contemporary significance, symbolism, and meaning of rock art to Indigenous communities have often been overlooked in pursuit of archaeological agendas. In this article, we examine contemporary engagement with rock art by the Yanyuwa Aboriginal community in northern A…
Determining the age of paintings at JSARN–113/23, Jawoyn Country, central-western Arnhem Land plateau
Western Arnhem Land, in the Top End of Australia's Northern Territory, has a rich archaeological landscape, ethnographic record and body of rock art that displays an astonishing array of imagery on shelter walls and ceilings.While the archaeology goes back to the earliest period of Aboriginal occupation of the continent, the rock art represents some of the richest, most diverse and visually most impressive regional assemblages anywhere in the wor…
Rock Art and Ethnography in Australia
This chapter discusses the contribution of ethnography to the study of Australian rock art. With more than 100 years of ethnographic enquiry into rock art from across the country, valuable insights into the meaning, motives, function, and symbolism of images have been identified. However, with this information comes challenges with its use (and abuse), as well as the necessity to understand the cultural contexts of interpretation and meaning-maki…
Rock Art as Cultural Expressions of Social Relationships and Kinship
This chapter examines rock art as cultural expressions of social relationships and kinship. More specifically, it considers the type(s) of relationships that exist or emerge in Indigenous contexts and how appreciation of these relationships can elucidate the meaning, symbolism, and significance of rock art. It first explores the relational contexts of rock art by citing examples involving sorcery before discussing the social embeddedness of rock …
Archaeology (44 works) · Geography (32 works) · History (32 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (31 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (28 works) · History (25 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (21 works) · Rock art (21 works)